Monday, December 19, 2011

I got all my final litho prints done Friday the 9th! I stayed in the print shop all day, first finishing up cutting out the paper for the chine-collé (which i'd started Thursday night, as well as finishing up the etches), then putting the glue on the red paper (which caused it to curl up & was messier than i'd have liked), then actually printing. Twenty in all, with, obviously, some variations, as you can see. I took some video of the process, which i'd like to edit together into a little video & maybe put up on YouTube-- nothing special, of course.

I was really glad with how they all came out; only a few were really messed up with the chine-collé registering badly & all. I watched the moon rise while i worked, & finished in time for free cocoa & cookies, & then to accompany friends to the movie theater so we could laugh at Breaking Dawn.

Tomorrow is the final crit! Litho was so difficult, but now i think i can kind of finally appreciate it. It was kind of bittersweet to roll up the last time for the final print, then tuck my stone (i named it Steve) back into its cubby.

Now i just have to worry about all my other finals. Considering the fact that my paper due Tuesday is still not finished, i'm going to be worrying a lot. I suck at writing papers.

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

you bet your life it isI keep thinking about bad things. Woke up this morning, & my thoughts were already on all the terrifying things that are starting to happen in this country. If it's not internet censorship, it's the NDAA bill or whatever with its cute little bit about essentially turning the country into a battleground on which the military can act with impunity. No more Bill of Rights. No more search warrants, not even knocking, not even explaining; just bursting into your house to come take you away for whatever supposed "terrorist" things you've been doing. Criticizing the government? Middle Eastern descent? Dropping the flag? You terrorist. We're detaining you somewhere indefinitely. No rights. No right to a lawyer, no right to a speedy trial of your peers. No more rights.

So while yeah, the GOP are showing themselves to be their usual assholic selves, i feel like that all acts as diversionary tactics. I feel like the real worries & dangers are the laws that are trying to passed nowadays, that strip everyone of their rights, & then go further into it to strip other people of their rights based on the color of their skin, what's between their legs, who they choose to make out with, &c. I feel like they're trying to pass these while everyone thinks they're doing their American duty by making Rick Perry into a meme. Yeah, fine, we know he's a jackass piece of shit. What about these laws that will rob of us our rights? What about the fact that it could become very real for the military to knock down your door just because you made a ranting blog post about the government? And for them to take you away somewhere & hold you indefinitely? It's the Patriot Act on steroids. I've also seen something that claims FEMA is building detainment/internment camps in all 50 states. While the site it linked to seemed somewhat questionable, at the same time, i feel like it wouldn't surprise me at all. After all, once they drag you off, they've got to have somewhere to dump you & keep you for the rest of your life. As you're forgotten utterly by the outside world.

And people are pointing out that the fact that these laws are popping up after Occupy got started isn't a coincidence. And that today's protesters are going to be the first arrested & thrown away, & they'll be forgotten. Left to rot.

I'm legitimately scared about what the next year might bring, never mind the next few years. Will we even still be around? Maybe the internet will be cut off from the rest of the world. Maybe i'll be locked up somewhere for waving a flag upside down. Maybe they'll start executing people. What's better, to be locked up indefinitely & forgotten, or shot by a firing squad?

I want a hug. I want to be told that these things won't happen, & to have it be true. But that's not going to happen. And when shit starts to go down, will people wake up then? Will they just bow their heads, stay low, "Don't draw attention & they won't bother us"? Will people rise to the occasion, & will they suffer the consequences? Will people rise up after that happens? Will those of us who grew up on stories like Harry Potter & Lord of the Rings live up to our fictional heroes? I don't think i'm really a Gryffindor. Could i ever be as brave as Harry? As Neville? Would i ever have the courage to stand in front of someone who could easily kill me & say, "Fuck you, you won't bring us down"?

And then, people want rest. There's the simple fact that some days you have to tune things out to get through the day. What happens when that no longer becomes an option? What happens when we can't say "Let me just curl up for the day, get some work done, read a book, drink some tea/coffee/cocoa; i need an off day, it's an off day"-- what happens when we get burnt out & scared & tired & frustrated? What happens when we no longer have the luxury to tune things out? What happens when we get crushed? What happens when we find out we can be broken even more than we already are? What happens when we get tired & weepy & want to cry & curl up away from the world? We already want do, don't we? And things can-- & fuck, probably will-- get much, much worse. I'm already scared. I already want to turn into a two-year-old again, go crying to somewhere big & safe. I want to be told everything will be okay, & it will be true.

How do the heroes manage? How do they keep moving forward, going on? How do they not stop & get so scared they run backwards instead? How do they not get tired & just stop? The simple, cynical answer, of course, is that they're fictional. The story will go in their favor, because that's the way it's "supposed" to be. But that doesn't happen in reality. More often than not, in reality, the good guys lose & the bad win. Overwhelmingly so. We grow up on stories of good triumphing over evil, & then we grow up & see how false those stories are, even as we hold onto them for hope & to find a path, some way to cope & move forward & try to win. It's like how my generation was told "You can be anything you want to be, do anything you want to do!" We grew up on that, grew up believing it; now the illusion is shattered, but we still try to hold onto it. We were told we could all be good & great & brilliant, & even after we've been shown that this is not true, we still want to hold onto it somehow. We still want to try. We still want to rage against this bullshit, still want to make something of ourselves, even as the proverbial wolves close in around us. Even as we see everything becoming even more horrible & moving backwards, we still seem to want to believe that we can become something, that we can win.

Because, oh, well, Harry won. The Free Peoples won. The good guys win-- the good guys win because the authors make it so that the good guys win. Harry only gets a happy ending because JKR wanted him to have a happy ending. Happy endings & survival aren't guaranteed in the real world.

I don't want any of this to be real. I really fucking don't. But i can't help myself. I start to think, & i start to be convinced, because what other result could there ever possibly be? And i can't see ways of fighting any of it. And i get scared, & then i feel like a coward, & then i get angry at myself for being a coward. I'm scared to be grabbed by a police person & slammed to the ground. It would probably break my glasses, if not my nose, & i can't see well at all without my glasses. I read an account of someone who was arrested at OWS, & how she wasn't allowed to use the bathroom, that she was in pain because of it, & only after much begging did the police let her use the toilet, & even then, they watched her. I have bladder issues; i couldn't go without freedom to use a freaking toilet. I'm scared; i'm a coward. I'm no Gryffindor.

Of course, when i'm not scared, i fly into rages. Which is pretty unhelpful. I wouldn't be the most peaceful protester; i'd end up being the one trying to beat the police back with their own nightsticks. And by the sounds of police jackassery in many various situations, some of the fuckers deserve it. Some of the fuckers who abuse their power deserve to be maced in their faces, slammed onto the ground, handcuffed to the point of losing feeling in their hands, beaten, called horrible things, degraded-- because they've done it to others. I don't want to fucking play fair & nice. Do i look like Jesus? Buddha? Muhammad? Quan Yin? I'm a vicious, heartless bitch when i'm not terrified, & sometimes i really do think certain people deserve it.

But now i'm getting just scared more & more & i just don't know what to do anymore.

And finished the color prints. Unfortunately, none of them were as on register as i wanted them to be.The crap test prints were more on register with the key than the actual prints:

And now, the first two (oil) paintings i've made in over a year:

Both done for my medieval art history class (better than having to do a 7 page paper). Modernized Byzantine icons! Hippie Pantocrator & Social Networking Theotokos. Unfortunately, my artist statement was tyoed up at 3-3:30 a.m. & made no sense whatsoever. But people responded to them very positively, which surprised me. I was expecting at least one person to get mad about it & accuse me of something or other.

Friday, November 25, 2011

Light and shadow Photo assignment. A triptych. Don't think it ended up working too well.And sketchbook page:I've painted a little bit tonight. The gold paint i'm using (it sounds tacky, but there's a reason, honest) smells so toxic that i've had to put my fan back in my window to try & air out my room. So i'm really cold right now & wondering if i should sleep in a room with this gold paint....